A Dog Story Worse Than Old Yeller

American Dad, S07E14

A story about Stan falling in love with a dog?  How could that possibly not be a wonderful episode?  Luckily the writers are paying attention in some fashion because Francine pointed out that it's been done (though you can't blame shows like this for a little repetition when you've done so many stories), but it still didn't stop them from making us suffer through Stan attaching himself to another dog that ends badly.  We had to watch him obsess over a dog that needed to be put down in the most humane way possible, but instead was made into some Frankenstein monster of a dog.  If only the Hayley and Jeff story could have lightened the overall tone of this disturbing and slightly depressing story.  No such luck.

Since we were privileged to watch Stan's childhood dog, Freddie, meet an undeserved end, it was sort of a given that Kisses, the new dog, would not live long enough to repair the hole in Stan's heart that had been placed there by his mother's deceit (did you really need to lie to your son and make him kill his own dog?).  However, instead of being killed by a car in the street during some innocent frisbee play, Kisses is killed by an air balloon basket (not the most incredible part) which was piloted by what seems to be a gang of pirate kittens.  What in the world??  Okay, I know you writers have to throw our expectations out the window, but that is almost too hard to believe even in SF world.  They might as well just made the dog dead without us even knowing what happened if it was going to die in such a meaningless, only for a joke way.

The best thing about Stan refusing to let Kisses go, despite the dog was only alive thanks to a machine at first, was when he went to library and studied how to fix the dog on his own.  After he had defaced the library, a librarian urges the sleeping security guard to do something.  The guy's lazy, half-hearted attempts to stop Stan (he didn't even get up) were hilarious.  I hope they bring that man back.  He was great.  I also liked that they played the theme to Weird Science during his studying montage.

Another funny scene was when Stan stole Kisses and brought him to Dr. Lizzie (voiced by Amy Sedaris--yay!) .  She crackles for the longest time in what you think would be really disconcerting to the listener, but Stan, with his face dead serious, tells her that she has a beautiful laugh.  Amy did a good job of conveying a pretty creepy doctor who would be capable of turning that cute dog into something that only Jesus could love.

I think that Steve put it best to describe the sight of that dog which had eyes for testicles, a drumstick and a frog leg for hind legs, a softball mitt for a skull, and was dragging some kind of electric box on wheels:

Oh, God!  Please kill this dog!

Even as a cartoon, it was pretty hard to see that blind dog hobbling around and breathing for dear life.  It's beyond sick.  I'm glad that Freddie came to Stan in a dream to convince him to let the dog be at peace, but did he really have to blow it up to bits so that its bloody head hit their bedroom window??  Excessive much??  That dog had been through enough.  At least he could have killed it peacefully.  Watching this was almost on par with that horrible kitten cutaway gag on Family Guy.  Let's stop with all the dead animals, shall we?  I think I got my fill last Sunday, for real.

 Roger was being his creepy self, despite this disturbing episode, only slightly lightening the mood.  My favorite scene of his was when he was hitting on Jeff in the pool.  Also, even though it's pretty nasty, I like how he was trying to get Stan to have popcorn from a bucket he had clearly cut a hole into.  Which makes me wonder what kind of genitalia that he has.  I assume he's a male, but he is an alien so maybe he has something else that is some combo of both genders (he is bisexual, after all)?  Actually, I shouldn't wonder this.  I think I would be better off not knowing the answer to that mystery.

I feel like I could have been fine not watching this episode, though I'm not as disgusted by it as I may make it seem.  I've seen worse (where I had to turn away from the TV), but I think I was mostly bored by Stan connecting with a pet again.  Like Roger said, he is the only pet that family needs (and no one gives a damn about Klaus since technically he was originally a human).  I hope this episode marks the end of Stan ever having to deal with a dog again unless it's guard dogs or something less intense.  I don't think I can tolerate another bad end for a pet that didn't do anything wrong (though it was nice that it was dedicated to the real life Freddie who passed--aww).